MoreDandelion Root Tea

Dateline: 20 January 2015

If you live close to the earth and pursue a lifestyle of self-reliance to some degree, there are definite times and seasons for doing things. When a task is not done in season, you miss your opportunity. This was almost the case for me last fall when it came to digging dandelion roots for making my yearly supply of "root-tea" (as I call it around here).

In This Past Essay I told how, after years of thinking about it, I actually put some initiative into digging, drying, and roasting dandelion roots for the first time in my life. It so happened that there was nothing hard about any of it and the finished product is something I like very much. I like the flavor, and I like the fact that the tea is good for a body (the liver especially).

Based on that experience, I determined that making my own root-tea must needs be a part of my seasonal routines, like making apple cider in the fall, and maple syrup in the spring. My understanding is that the dandelion roots are best dug in the late fall, after a frost, and before the ground freezes.

But late last fall, with a snow storm approaching, and knowing that the ground would surely freeze, I had still not dug a supply of dandelion roots. It was nearing dusk, the wind was bitter cold, snow flakes were in the air. I grabbed a garden fork and a bucket and headed off, on foot, through the woods, to my field.

My field is chock full of weeds, including plenty of dandelions. They are healthy, organic, wild dandelions. I dug roots until there was so much snow on the ground that I could not identify which weeds were dandelions.

I processed the roots exactly as I showed in the essay link above. But instead of roasting the ground roots right away, I thoroughly dried them in a food dehydrator. Then I roasted them later.

I am confident in my digging, washing, chopping and drying abilities. But the roasting part seems to be one of those skills that requires some time and experience to know how it is best achieved. I think I have a tendency to over-roast, to the point of burning the little bits. But I haven’t yet ruined a roasting. Just come close.

I equate this roasting of the roots to the first few times Marlene and I made maple syrup years ago. Finishing it off on the stove was something of a mystery and we were plenty nervous about it. But, in time, we’ve come to “understand the syrup.”  Now finishing and jarring maple is a familiar process that we do with knowledge and efficiency.

One of the nice things about having a cup of root-tea in the evenings is that I can share the routine with my grandson, Futureman, when he is here. I add cream and maple syrup to the tea, and he loves it.

To Futureman, the root-tea is "fawky" which is his word for coffee (he doesn't drink real coffee, of course). We're working hard at learning him how to pronounce the word more accurately. Since he has no problem saying "cow" we are referring to root-tea as "cow-fee." The strategy is showing promise.

I suppose that learning to properly pronounce words at nearly-three is much like learning to roast your own dandelion root tea at nearly-fifty-seven. These things take time. And then, one day, it’s an easy, natural part of life.